VICE President Sara Duterte on Sunday drew a parallel between her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, and former senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., saying the detained former chief executive may also end up dead once he returns to the country.
The vice president said she made the warning to her father after he told her that he wants to return to the country to campaign for the upcoming May midterm elections.
The 79-year-old Duterte is running for mayor of Davao City.
“At ‘yon ang gusto niya, gusto niyang umuwi. Sinabi ko din sa kanya ‘yon, ‘Pa, ‘yung kagustuhan mo na umuwi, iyan din ‘yung katapusan ng buhay mo — magiging Ninoy Aquino Jr. ka (And that’s what he wants. He wants to go home. I also told him that, ‘Pa, your desire to come home, that will be the end of your life),’” she told Filipino supporters in The Hague, the Netherlands where her father is being tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity.
Aquino, the father of the late former president Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III, and husband of the late former president Corazon Aquino, was a known opposition leader and was among the first to be arrested when the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. placed the country under martial law in 1972.
He was incarcerated for seven years and was only allowed to go free when he had to go to the United States to seek medical treatment.
On his return to the Philippines on August 21, 1983, he was shot while embarking from an airplane at the Manila International Airport.
His death served as a turning point that triggered the fight for freedom which climaxed into the People Power Revolution of 1986.
Sara said that in response, her father told her that he was ready to accept his fate, even if that could mean death.
“At sinabi niya sa akin, sabi nya, ‘Kung ganyan ang kapalaran ko, then so be it. Basta lang mauwi ako sa Pilipinas’ (And then he told me, ‘If that is my fate, then so be it. I just want to come home to the Philippines’),” the vice president said to which some supporters responded: “Sama kaming lahat (We will go with him).”
Sara admitted that despite her fears for her father’s “safety and security,” the former president has been insisting that: “Ibalik niyo ako sa Pilipinas (Take me back to the Philippines).”
She told the crowd of supporters that her father’s legal team is working on a remedy to secure his release before the ICC’s next scheduled hearing in September.
The Duterte supporters, who came from different parts of Europe, were heard alternately chanting “Bring him home” and “Marcos resign,” before singing the “Happy Birthday” song to the former president, who is turning 80 years old on March 28.
The crowd of supporters, who reportedly reached around 2,000, even sang “Bayan Ko,” which was the opposition’s anti-Marcos anthem during the 1986 Edsa People Power revolution.
‘MORE LIKE HITLER’
Communications undersecretary and Palace press officer Claire Castro, in a briefing in Malacañang, taunted the vice president for comparing her father to Aquino, who she said was neither involved in mass murder nor any crimes against humanity.
“Napakalayo pong ipakumpara ang dating Pangulong Duterte kay Ninoy Aquino na hindi nagkaroon ng anumang record ng mass murder or crimes against humanity (It’s far-fetched to compare former president Duterte to Ninoy Aquino as the latter did not have a record of mass murder or crimes against humanity),” Castro said.
She added that the former president had previously compared himself to German leader Adolf Hitler.
Castro was referring to a statement of the elder Duterte in 2016 where he mentioned the death of millions of Jews under Hitler, which he compared to the killing of drug addicts in the Philippines.
“Mayroon po siyang sinabi mismo, sinabi pa niya dito (He once said) and I quote, ‘Hitler massacred three million — actually, it’s supposed to be six million Jews. Now there is three million, what is it? Three million drug addicts in the Philippines – there are. I’d be happy to slaughter them. At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have me,’” Castro said.
In a statement, posted in the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation Facebook page, the Aquino family said the situation of the late senator is totally different from what is happening to the elder Duterte.
“Kung pag-aaralan natin ang kasaysayan, makikita natin na ibang iba ang ginawa kay Ninoy sa pinagdadaanan ngayon ni dating panguo Duterte (if we study history, we can see that what happened to Ninoy is very different from what Duterte is experiencing),” the statement read.
Labor leaders and Partido Lakas ng Masa senatorial bets Luke Espiritu and Leody de Guzman disputed Sara’s remark.
Espiritu laughed off the comparison, noting that Aquino and the former president are on opposite sides of history because of their legacies.
“The nerve! Your father ran and tried to hide in China but got refused. Ninoy on the other hand faced the bullets that he knew were coming. Your dad killed his countrymen, Ninoy fought for human rights. Your dad then gave Ninoy’s murderer a hero’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani,” he said in Filipino.
Espiritu pointed out that the Duterte family were instrumental in allowing the Marcoses to return to power, after Ninoy’s sacrifice led to their downfall.
“If your father gets killed, that is justice. When Ninoy was assassinated, that was injustice. It requires a peculiar level of shamelessness to be able to ignore the contradiction between the two,” he added.
De Guzman said the supposed similarities between Duterte and Aquino only exist in the vice president’s imagination.
“No two persons could not be farther apart: one is a mass murderer who has been arrested and is facing a trial for his crimes while the other was an opposition leader who was persecuted and died a martyr,” he said, also in Filipino.
He said that contrary to what Sara said, families of victims of Duterte’s war on drugs and Filipinos who believe in justice would rather see the former president alive to serve time.
“An assassination would be an easy way out for the former president. We would rather see him rot in jail. For those of us who firmly believe in due process, it would be more fitting that Rodrigo Duterte live longer to have time to repent for his sins,” De Guzman said.
SHOW EVIDENCE
Castro said Sara should show the basis and present evidence to prove her claims of a supposed threat against her father.
She noted that the younger Duterte had yet to prove her previous claims that there are threats against her life.
She said as far as Malacañang is concerned, there is no truth to such claims.
“Iyon nga po nakakapagtaka eh, saan po ba nakukuha itong mga kuwento na ganito? Saan po nakukuha ang pagkukumpara kay dating Ninoy Aquino? Saan nakukuha iyong mga threats? (This is really puzzling. Where did they get these stories? Where did they get the idea of comparing him to the late Ninoy Aquino? Where did they get these threats?),” Castro asked.
“Kailangan po natin kasi ng mga materyales, ng mga ebidensiya bago po magsagawa ng ganitong mga klaseng statements. Wala pong katotohanan iyan (We need materials, evidence before we believe such statements. There is no truth to that),” she added.
‘BBM RESIGN’
At one point, the vice president responded to supporters who were calling for the resignation of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.: “Kayo ang nagsabi niyan, hindi ako a? (You are the ones who said that, not me, okay?)”
She then started criticizing the president, her running mate in the 2022 national elections, by harping on his alleged failure to lead the country.
“Bakit ba kailangan magresign? Dahil hindi mo pinapakita sa taumbayan na maayos kang mag isip at kaya mo ang mamuno (Why should you resign? Because you failed to show the people that you can think clearly and that you can lead),” she said.
She also urged supporters to continue demanding that the Philippine government work on the her father’s return to the country.
“Huwag natin tigilan ang panawagan sa gobyerno natin sa Pilipinas at sa lahat ng gobyerno na nakikinig at dito sa ICC na ipaalam sa kanila na mali ang ginawa kay (dating) pangulong Rodrigo Duterte (Let us not stop or calls for the government in the Philippines and to all governments listening and here in the ICC to let them know that what they did to (former) president Rodrigo Duterte was wrong),” Sara said.
“Ituloy lang ‘yung kaso, walang problema, ibalik nyo lang siya (Continue with the cases against him, no problem, just bring him home),” she added.
She also called on supporters not to allow other respondents in the case to be “kidnapped” and brought to a foreign country to stand trial like her father.
“I heard – and I don’t know if it’s true – that there are other arrest warrants coming out for other accused in the case. So we need to learn from what happened and we need to make the government understand that they did something wrong,” she said.
Castro said Sara will benefit is Marcos resigns.
“Kahit sabihin po ni VP Sara, ‘Oh, kayo nagsabi niyan,’ siya pa rin po ang makikinabang. Sasabihin po ba na walang kakayanang mamuno, papaano po natin masasabi ito kung ang pinapairal po natin ay ang batas at very transparent po tayo sa anumang mga transaksiyon (Even if VP Sara said ‘you are the ones who said it,” she would still benefit from it. Can we really say that he [Marcos] is not capable to lead when we implemented the law and are very transparent in our transactions?” she said. – With Jocelyn Montemayor, Peter Tabingo and Ashzel Hachero
PRESENTATION OF EVIDENCE
The ICC Pre-Trial Chamber 1 has ordered the prosecution and defense teams to disclose their evidence by April.
In an order dated March 21, the chamber directed the prosecution to submit the written evidence it intends to present in the confirmation hearing by April 4.
The confirmation hearing is set on September 23 this year.
Aside from the written pieces of evidence, the prosecution was also directed to submit the number of written evidence it intends to present, and the original language of the evidence, as well as the language in which it will be made available.
The chamber also directed the prosecution to submit the duration and original languages of such evidence and transcripts, as well as their translations if it involved non-written pieces of evidences.
The prosecution must also submit how many persons, if any, it intends to present as witnesses to testify viva voce (oral rather than written testimonies).
On the other hand, Duterte’s defense team was given until April 11 to submit its observations on the evidence and other submissions by the prosecution.
